


Drowning

by orphan_account



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: After Annie's Games, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Instability, POV Alternating, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:22:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2747567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winning the Games never required a survival of the mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning

All I can see is blood.

My vision is dark crimson, sunlight shining through a light film of red covering my eyes. Everything shakes, and I try to stifle my screams, shutting myself off from the rest of the world.  _Could I?_  I wonder in the midst of my chaos.  _Could I just go silently, leave this place, return to District 4?_  


I hear the sound the shortsword makes as it slices through skin and flesh and life, and open my eyes just in time to avoid the head of my district partner flying into me. I collapse and begin to sob, ignoring the shaking.

Days pass, months and years, and when I am sure I am nothing but a shriveled package of dried muscle and brittle bone, I crack one eye open. I can still feel the red in my eyes, creeping in the corners every time I blink. I wipe my face and white comes back red. I find I can draw no conclusion but the fact that I have clawed myself again.

I sniffle, sitting up and stifling a giggle.  _That wasn't so bad._  


I scan the area around me. Still no head. Another dream. I almost smile. I know that one day he'll come again, come to take off my district partner's head. My partner, with sad, vacant eyes, half caught in surprise as the other tribute grabs him by the hair and performs a clean slice.

The red returns...

I shake my head, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and back and forth and back until the red is gone.  _No more of that. No more of that._  


The ground is still shaking, and branches are falling from the trees above me. One falls and hits me square on the head, and I laugh until I hear the laugh of the boy with the shortsword cutting through my neck and I now I feel my head shaking of its own accord now, telling me to calm down without being prompted.

I wish the shaking would stop, I wish it would. I wish I could lay down and melt into the underbrush blanketing the forest floor. But I can't, not now, not when I've come so close to getting up. With painstaking movements, I grab the tree behind me for support as I climb to my feet. The shaking doesn't help.

I smooth back the hairs clouding my vision, and recognize the pain in the back of my throat as thirst. I look up, a part of me hoping for some sort of creek nearby, but instead I find a cache of silver parachutes piled up about ten feet away from me, lopsided. It makes me dizzy.

My hearing comes back to me, once I know I'm supposed to be listening. Slowly, the familiar sound off of the beacon echoes around me over and over again, as each little case tries to outdo the one next to it in short, monotone beeps. I inch towards the pile, and as I grab the first one I can place, all of the beacons quiet, and all sounds fade again. I unsnap the lock with shaky hands, and out drops a metal bottle, along with a tiny white slip of paper. I choose the paper first.  _Anything to distract me from the red._  


_Mags says you have 13 hours before you die of dehydration. -F_

I open the bottle and take a swig. Within minutes the bottle is gone and my vision is clear, my hearing returned. The shaking has subsided, though now even the branches are beginning to shake, and I see two squirrels scamper across the underbrush. 

The second silver parachute contains a similar note ( _I want you to come home. Eat so you can come home. -F_ ) and a larger canister of some warm liquid I can only conclude to be soup. When I open the lid, however, hot, steaming blood pours out from the edges of the bowl, searing my skin. I can see the dark creeping back into my vision, like a velvet curtain. This time I cannot catch the scream in my throat and it overflows from my mouth like the blood from the bowl. I can feel my body rejecting the water along with it. 

Miles and miles away, I feel hard, steady rock crack like bones, and a rush of something. Supplies? Maybe? The first thing that comes to mind is blood, and thousands of little heads, with subdued red hair and vacant eyes. 

Water crashes through the trees up ahead, and like a firing squad, the cannons begin their song. 

I get to my feet, supporting my weight on shaky knees, with the canister of blood that is now looking conspicuously similar to soup as my sole weapon. In the back of my mind, I can feel a few of the beacons start beeping again, but I ignore them. The Gamemakers have given me the one enemy I can take on my own.

The wall of water hits me like a solid brick, knocking the wind out of me. I gasp for air but instead gulp down mouthfuls of freshwater. I spit it all out quickly, and like before, my throat has no problem regurgitating what I have just ingested. 

Soon enough, the wave has carried me above the low lying branches in the trees. I must actively avoid the tops of the trees from scratching me, which in turn requires my full and undivided attention to the task at hand, something I cannot offer to anyone right now. Not even President Snow.  _Did he finally beat me? Did he beat me like Finnick said?_  


If I look down I can see, far away and just feet from me, the bodies of the tributes who have been trying to kill me for the past six days. Seven days? Some are dead, others dying, others screaming for life as they slip beneath the surface, grasping for my legs and arms as I float, grasping for the sun and the air and the smell of roses.

I float for days and weeks and months again, losing track of time. Every once in a while a tribute will float along with me, dead or alive, conscious or otherwise, always wearing the mask of my district partner, diluting the water with blood that eventually clouds my vision. I always scream, and thrash in the water in desperate attempts to separate myself from the dead boy. For days upon weeks upon months, I scream and I float, waiting for the water to take me.

Far away, the cannons' song has ended, and the Anthem takes its place. The water level begins to descend, and over the roar and crash of the waves as they hit rocks and trees on their way down, seeping into the now-porous underbrush, I can faintly hear a Capitol accent announcing the end of the 70th Annual Hunger Games. I wonder who has taken the prize home, and who will bring their district the honor and glory of a victory.

The moment my feet make contact with the slippery, wet leaves, I collapse.

* * *

As the last cannon sounds, I can see Mags lift her hand to her mouth, speechless. She puts another on my shoulder, patting it. Haymitch, hovering behind me, has a smile in his voice as he talks of Annie's victory. A small part of me breathes that sigh of relief I have been holding in for six long days. But I cannot celebrate. Annie is not well yet.

Her eyes dart sluggishly from the ground to her hands to the sky, where Claudius Templesmith's voice is congratulating her on her victory in the 70th annual Hunger Games. I can tell she isn't listening, and she's already fading by the time the Gamemakers have drained the dam wave down to the tree line.

Her feet touch the ground, and she doesn't even make an effort to support her weight, the water placing her down on the wet leaves of what used to be a forest and is now definitely a swamp. Her hair is spread out across the damp ground, her clothes torn, scars beginning to develop around her eyes and wrists. As the sun focuses its rays on her, I notice small gashes in her sides, where tree branches have torn away her clothes and left marks on her torso. She looks at peace.

I shove the thought out of my mind. She is not dead.  _She is not at peace. The battle for her has only just begun._  


The monitors around the mentoring stations are beginning to shut off, as previous victors are escorted out by Peacekeepers. Eventually, only Mags and I remain.

All of the monitors but my own have flickered off. The cameras are only focusing on Annie now. The hovercraft has her in its metal grip, the bars collapsing around her limp body. Her head tips back and her mouth slacks open. Her chest is still rising and falling.  _How is she still alive?_  


The monitor flickers off, and I feel myself relax. I hadn't realized I had held my breath until I let out a long sigh. The room is empty, save for a few Peacekeepers guarding the main door. My head is in my hands, and my breathing gets shorter. Tears leak from my eyes, and I can feel Mags put her arms around me, rubbing my back, draping me in her embrace. All I can think about is Annie; she is alive, and she will be with me soon. I am laughing to myself, laughing into my wet, tear-soaked hands. I turn to Mags.

"She's alive."

Mags smiles, grins, laughs a little with me. I can see a sparkle in her eyes, too, and tiny drops run down the crevasses in her face. 

We sit there, laughing and crying for a while, before a Peacekeeper decides to approach us. "We have a car waiting for you outside."

I nod, composing myself. Mags follows me out the main door. I am going to see Annie.

I remember the last time I saw her before the Games started.  Her dark brown hair was done up in a bun, her skin clear, rid of all of the distracting makeup from days past: the parade, the interviews. I kept telling her to just find the Careers, find them and she'll be safe.  _Look how_  that  _turned out._  She was a bundle of nerves though, and I remember she only stopped shaking when my lips were on hers. I remember her walking away, to the hovercraft, while the glass door slid up to separate us, and the only thing I could think of was that I might have touched her for the last time.

And now she's mine again.

The car ride is long, and the entire time Mags is squeezing my hand, reminding me to stay here, that we're almost there, we're almost to Annie. Mags says more with her actions than even Caesar Flickerman could say with his words. More than anyone could ever say with words. More than President Snow could say if he killed-

The car stops in front of a plain, concrete building, with two stories and a helipad.  _The hovercraft hangar._  Used almost exclusively for the Games, considering any inter-district and Capitol travel is done by train, I know this place well. But this is the first time I have come twice in a week, the second to receive a victor.

I nearly stumble out of the car.  _She is so close._  Just an hour ago she was out of my grasp, out in the Arena, fighting against her own mind. And now she is here. She is waiting for me.

After the 11th Hunger Games, when a victor died of his injuries on the ride back to the Capitol, a hospital wing was built inside the hovercraft hangar. A Peacekeeper who meets Mags and I at the door, motions for us to follow him there. The hangar is cold inside, and behind glass walls I see rooms and rooms filled to the brim with hovercraft. Some of the ceilings are open, admitting some hovercraft that have just returned from body retrieval in the Arena. I look away just in time to come face to face with a sterile metal door, marked only with a red cross and two iron handles. The Peacekeeper opens them to reveal the hospital wing.

And there she is. Brilliant even in unconsciousness, with an oxygen mask over her face and an IV pumping drugs into her arm, she is just as beautiful as the day I said goodbye to her at the hovercraft hangar a week ago. Her eyes have dark bags underneath them, and her face is ridden with claw marks she has dealt herself. There are bruises on her arms and leaves are still in her hair. But she is still beautiful.

I turn to the Peacekeeper. "Can I...?" I motion to the glass wall seperating Mags and I from the hospital room where Annie is being treated. 

The Peacekeeper simply shakes his head. Somewhere I find it in me not to protest. For now, seeing her again is enough.

Just as I turn back, I see her eyes fluttering open, sea green straight from the ocean contrasting again the pale fluorescence of her skin. Her eyebrows crease ever so slightly, and she blinks under the harsh light. She makes a move to sit up, raising her chest in a sign of repulsion to her new environment, but an Avox nurse pushes her down and feeds more clear liquid into the IV hooked into her forearm.

She turns her head, scanning the room from one end to the other, until, unexpectedly, she finds me. I feel myself falter, then everything simply falls away. It is just me and her. Her sea green eyes, her brilliant brown hair, the light freckles dusting her light skin like dirt. Everything that I have worked so hard to keep is right in front of me. 

Deep blue waves replace the sterile white of the hospital room. Bright white sun replaces the harsh fluorescence, and we are home. I lay next to her on a boat in the middle of the ocean, counting her freckles and kissing her fingertips. No bruises, no blood, no claw marks. She is Annie, and she is here in front of me, stretched out across the length of the helm, laughing as I tell a story of a mermaid, so gorgeously plain and raw, stupid enough to wash herself up on land and call herself Annie Cresta. I pull the sails and she sings of the sea we sail on, gazing out at the waters, chin resting on her hand, the other of which drawls little circles on the water's edge. I climb down from the sails to sit next to her, kissing her again, silencing her song with my lips. She tastes of seawater in the sun. The Games are gone, and all of the destruction they have brought. 

With a blink, all of that is gone. I am back to the hospital wing in the hovercraft hangar, in the Capitol. And she is too. She is gone again, though, her eyelids shut, her body limp. I realize my hand is on the glass, mouth slightly agape. I feel moisture on my face. I step away quickly, composing myself. Mags has her hand on my back, too short to reach my shoulder, and when I turn to her she is smiling.  _It's going to be okay._  


In that moment I fully notice her importance in keeping Annie alive. She's been mentoring kids for over 60 years, and she's done her best work in this past week, maybe even better than when she got me out of the Arena. Scraping up the funds to pay for all of the silver parachutes I decided to send down in a strange panic, when I thought her last breath of life was near, when I shut my ears off to the sound of cannons, afraid it would be Annie's. Dealing with me, really. I don't know what it's like to take care of someone that low, but something tells me I'm going to have to find out very soon. I lean down and hug Mags, burying my face into her silver, feather-light hair, whispering a  _thank you_  into her neck.  _For everything._  


There is one doctor on the other side of the glass, in a room of Avox nurses, and once Annie seems under control he removes his mask and walks toward us. At first I think he will bump into the glass, but a section slides away to admit him just before he makes impact. Before I can think to sneak past him to cross the wall and be closer to Annie, it slides back. With that thought, my hands feel dumb and useless. What use do I have if not for Annie?

The doctor clears his throat. "She is dehydrated. Severely." He deadpans. "She'll need lots of recuperation before she can have any visitors. Some of the lacerations are moderate to severe, but we've already made some precautionary measures to assure that she does not catch infection. As for her mental state..." He sighs and looks back at the sole hospital bed in the large room, the only solitary structure besides a few medicine cabinets and the machines next to Annie. The Avox nurses have cleared out; one stands in the corner, no doubt as her monitor. "I can only estimate that she will be ready for closing interviews and the president's crowning by the end of next week, at the very most."

I want to say something, anything, even ask questions, but before I can he is on the other side of the glass wall, stopping only to check the numbers the machine displays, then exiting the room altogether through a door in the corner.

I want to collapse. I want to cross the distance between the glass enclosure we are standing in now, which I can only assume is some sort of remade surgical theatre. I push past the Peacekeeper and try the piece of glass that slid back for the doctor. It doesn't budge. I press my fingers against it, pushing it, in vain. The Peacekeeper has me by the arm, telling me in an insistent voice that we have to leave now. I don't have the energy to protest, only able to catch one final image of Annie, alone in the hospital room, her face shielded by the oxygen mask, her perfect face burdened only by the blows of the Capitol.


End file.
